SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Michael Conforto stood at his locker and considered the trivia question.
What do the following players have in common? Barry Bonds, Dave Roberts, Fred Lewis, Mark DeRosa and current San Francisco Giants hitting coach Pat Burrell?
“I think I’ve heard this one before…” Conforto said.
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Hold on, Michael. You haven’t heard the entire question. Also Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres, Michael Morse, Nori Aoki and Angel Pagan?
“Does it have something to do with…”
We’re still not done. There’s Jarrett Parker, Hunter Pence, Connor Joe, Alex Dickerson, Austin Slater and Joc Pederson, too.
“Wait, where was I on Opening Day last year?” Conforto said. “Was I in right field? Who was in left?”
Blake Sabol. The 17th player in 17 seasons to start for the Giants in left field on Opening Day. It’s a position that has cycled players faster in San Francisco than Spinal Tap goes through drummers. And barring unforeseen circumstances, Conforto is lined up to become the 18th member of the up-to-now ephemeral association when the Giants begin the season March 28 against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.
“That’s crazy. Incredible. Some really good names there,” Conforto said. “And it starts with Barry? Wow. I remember hearing that last year. The list is so long it’s hard to believe. Well, I hope to break that. That’d be cool. It would be great if I’m still around here.”
The odds are against Conforto suiting up for the 2025 opener in left, if only because he will be a free agent after this season. He’s only back this year because he decided not to opt out of his $18 million salary — a decision that usually goes against the grain for a Scott Boras client, but one that Conforto said was relatively simple to make. He felt more and more at peace with his decision as he watched the offseason play out. The market was particularly unkind to position players who’ve left their 20s behind. If Conforto had thrown his fortunes into free agency, the Boras Four could’ve been the Boras Five.
“I felt especially lucky,” Conforto said.
Stability and certainty were more important than ever this offseason for Conforto. He and his wife, Cabernet, welcomed their first child on Dec. 21. Their son, Camden Luca, was all swaddled up for his first spring training game a week ago. The Confortos live in Scottsdale in the offseason, so opting in with the Giants meant being home for spring training and not missing a moment away from his family. No last-minute rushes to make living arrangements, either. Right now, life is hectic enough as it is.
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“It’s life changing in the blink of an eye,” Conforto said. “It’s been really, really fun. He’s a little more aware every day. The newest thing is he doesn’t want me to hold him. It’s only mom right now. They’re just amazing together. It’s a complete change of your perspective. It’s going to be an interesting year.”
Conforto is determined to have a more productive year. He anticipated that last season would present challenges after he missed the entirety of the 2022 season while rehabbing from shoulder surgery, but he acknowledges now that he underestimated how difficult it would be to recapture the mix of health, stamina and rhythm that is fundamental to being a productive, everyday player.
“I was on the heavier side last year and I think that affected my legs,” said Conforto, whose hamstring issues in the second half sent him to the injured list. “Between that and not having the games underneath you … to be honest with you, I felt pretty gassed by the end of June. We had the All-Star break and you always have to grind through it. But when you take a year off, there’s no way of staying in the same shape all the next year.”
Conforto said he weighed “225-plus” last season and took note when his interviewer blinked in disbelief. “Trust me, I was every bit of it,” he said.
He’s down to 210 pounds now, which was his typical weight with the New York Mets where he posted an OPS+ of 120 or better in five of seven seasons. He showed a glimmer of that lineup-carrying offensive potential with the Giants in the first half last season, when he found his rhythm after a rough start (he was hitting .168 through 31 games on May 9) while hitting .359 with eight home runs and two doubles over a 22-game stretch from May 10 to June 8.
Then his legs got heavier.
“I just didn’t have the conditioning to continue it,” he said. “And I got banged up along the way, which was a result of not staying in shape. I did everything I could to get in shape. It’s just really hard when you don’t have those games under your legs. You don’t snap back into it.”
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Conforto’s fatigue showed up in the outfield, too, where he posted minus-3 outs above average and ranked in the 33rd percentile for fielding run value, according to Statcast. For all the consternation over his shoulder rehab, it wasn’t any throwing issues that caused his defensive numbers to tumble. It had everything to do with his lower half.
“We’re focusing on defensive improvement here,” Conforto said. “So I’ve got to be better out there. I’m committed to doing things differently and that’s the attitude I’ve gotten from a lot of the guys.”
It wasn’t Conforto’s second-half slide that doomed the Giants to miss the postseason when they had a playoff probability as high as 80.4 percent after the All-Star break. Sabol was the only regular or semi-regular position player who avoided the injured list. The second-half fatigue and injury issues were so pronounced that president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi mentioned it as an action item when the offseason began. The Giants wanted to target players who were either younger or have demonstrated durability throughout their careers.
The Giants should have much better lineup continuity after signing 25-year-old center fielder Jung Hoo Lee as well as Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman, who has exceeded 140 games played in all five of his full seasons. Jorge Soler doesn’t have the same Iron Man track record but the Giants are confident that he has a better chance to stay healthy if used almost exclusively as a designated hitter.
Conforto’s ambition is to be viewed as one of those everyday stalwarts again — and that includes starting against most left-handers. Not having to look over his shoulder in the on-deck circle late in games would be a welcome change, too. Conforto acknowledged that he didn’t adapt well in his first season as a Giant to being more actively managed than he’d ever been under former skipper Gabe Kapler.
“I can’t speak to everybody in this room because they (won the NL West) in 2021,” Conforto said. “But it’s very hard for me to feel comfortable seeing a team come in and there’s three lefties (starting) and not knowing if you’ll be in there or if you’ll be switched in there. It kind of throws a wrench into the preparation as well. I mean, it’s just not something that I’ve ever done. I’ve always been the guy who’s in there regardless and then I get my days against the really tough lefties. So that was definitely an adjustment.
“It’s super important for guys to settle into a place in the lineup and expect what you’re gonna see every day, expect who’s going to be in front of you, who’s gonna be on base. I mean, it’s just the classic way to do it. There’s definitely room to move guys around based on who’s hot and who needs a bit of a change. But man, to have that consistency, to just go home every day and know where you’ll be in the lineup, there’s something to be said about that for sure.
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“I think this season, we’re going to have our best guys in the lineup regardless of the matchups.”
After his struggles last season, though, which included a .598 OPS in 102 plate appearances against left-handed pitching, the onus will be on Conforto to prove he’s one of new manager Bob Melvin’s best guys.
“I want him to be a guy that plays every day and he’s had the ability to do it before,” Melvin said. “The injury probably had something to do with the numbers last year, and when you have somebody else who can play from the right side, you understand why it looked like it did last year. But we really want him to be a guy that stabilizes the middle of the lineup and performs against both sides. Now, performance is going to play after a while. But we’d like him to be one of those guys.”
Even though the entire league is gravitating away from left-on-left matchups, the Giants do not have a ready-made lefty-killing right-handed hitter that they could platoon with Conforto (assuming they limit Soler’s exposure in left field). Austin Slater is expected to platoon with Mike Yastrzemski in right field. Their other right-handed bench bat, Wilmer Flores, is limited to the infield. Tyler Fitzgerald has the athleticism and versatility to be an ideal choice to round out the bench, but he’s had relatively even platoon splits in the minor leagues.
In other words, Conforto should receive some runway to reestablish himself — starting on Opening Day in San Diego, where the Padres forecast to feature an all right-handed rotation.
It should be noted that there are still three weeks to go until the opener, which can be an eternity in spring training. The Giants could make a big play for left-hander Blake Snell and seek to shed some of Conforto’s salary in a trade for competitive balance tax purposes. By trading Mitch Haniger and Ross Stripling, Zaidi has undone several of his other moves from the previous offseason, when he had to pivot abruptly after Carlos Correa’s $350 million contract disintegrated over a failed physical.
The current and most likely course, though, is that Conforto will be in left field on Opening Day.
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It’s where he opted to be.
“The family situation played a small part in coming back, but ultimately it was the best situation for us in every way,” Conforto said. “I enjoyed my time with the Giants last year. And I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t think we’d be competitive. From the plans they put in place early in the offseason, they showed me they’re committed to winning. I’m excited to be a part of that.”
(Top photo of Conforto: Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
